


This Room and You

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [217]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: That Bucky likes Steve Rogers doesn’t surprise him because hell, everybody does. But that he finds the guy interesting as well as talented as shit and bone-crushingly beautiful--that’s come as a surprise.





	This Room and You

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: We’re actors who have never met before and the first scene we’re filming is the kissing scene, and the director isn’t happy so we have to do it over and over. By the way, you need a breath mint. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

It’s not that Bucky hates Steve Rogers; that’s kind of impossible. The guy’s a do-gooder in the best sense, in the sort of way that says even if he weren’t famous, weren’t a modern-day version of a matinee idol, he’d still be out there helping kids and raising money for animal rescue and using his scarce days off to build houses for the homeless with Jimmy Carter with a big ol’ smile on his face. He _likes_ it, trying to make the world a better place, and he’s one of the few actors Buck’s ever met who gets that there’s more he can do on that score than look pretty at photocalls and name drop Amnesty International whenever he wins an award. The press raves about him, his co-stars all do; even the crew guys Bucky’s met who’ve worked with the guy can’t gush fast enough. Steve Rogers is a very solid human. Full stop.

They’ve both been in the business about the same time, though Bucky’s path hasn’t been as meteoric as Steve’s. He’s more of a character actor than Rogers; co-star material, guest star of the week. He’s got talent, sure, but it’s not as easy to read as Rogers’, not as blond All-American beefcake. People see him as potentially tragic material, the kind of character you get to love in Act I before he dies an unfortunate death in Act III with loads of tears and self-pity in between. It’s a good niche, a relatively profitable one, but it’s never translated into summer blockbuster gold. Bucky’s been up for Critics’ Choice awards twice and never won and a Golden Globe once (same result), all as Best Supporting, etc., while Rogers already has his hand on the Oscar ladder: nominated three times, won once. For Best Actor, of course. And he’d deserved it.

Maybe it isn’t so funny, then, that their paths haven’t crossed until now; different trajectories and all that. But somehow, miracle of miracles, they’re on the same set, in the same scene, playing at being boyfriends, and Bucky’s not sure how to feel. Honored? he thinks, tugging at little at his linen shirt and resisting the urge to put a hand through his professionally styled hair. Or intimidated? Yeah. Some of both.

It’s not like today’s the first day they’ve met. There’ve been three weeks of rehearsals: first on a soundstage in Rome and then scattered over some of the gorgeous outdoor locations, set ups drowning in sun and the sound of the ocean, everybody--crew and talent alike--trying to get used to the heat. It’s a period love story, this picture, a different kind of movie for Rogers, the kind of project big actors do when they want to expand their range. He’s playing a traumatized WWI veteran who’s fled to the Italian coast after the Armistice to drown the last years of horror in the beauty and solace of the sea and Bucky’s the young American he meets there, rich and handsome and sheltered, with whom Rogers’ vet falls deeply in love.

Bucky dies in the last reel--because of course he does--loses his life to pandemic flu, but not before he and Rogers’ character have the sort of love affair that transforms Rogers forever, that brings life again to the dead weight of his heart.

So there’s a great deal of kissing to be done and tasteful sex scenes to endure and they’ve sort of sketched all of that, the two of them and the director, back in Rome and a little bit on this very set--the sitting room of a small villa--and why Bucky’s head feels like a hot air balloon, his heart like a train car, he has no goddamn idea. They’re not even shooting the tough stuff today, anything that requires banana slings and the removal of clothes; it’s just a kiss, the characters’ very first one, a fevered and clandestine thing that’ll take, eh, three or four takes, tops, depending on how Kubrick the director’s feeling this morning. He can make out with Steve Rogers for the next half hour, no problem, right?

Steve, who’s as fucking wonderful as everyone says. Steve, who’s even more beautiful in person. Steve who’s funny, Steve who remembers everybody’s name, Steve who likes to talk about politics and books rather than the business, any day.

But Steve is also not perfect. That’s something Buck’s learned. He has high expectations and he rides himself hard--too hard sometimes, Bucky thinks. He remembers his mistakes and files away his successes and seems determined to make everything about the movie match the picture that the director, Nat, has in her head. Bucky doesn’t figure out until the second week that Steve’s one of the producers, that he’s paying for just about everything. It’s a pet project, one based on a book whose title Bucky can never remember, and Steve’s desire for perfection sometimes come off as controlling. He never yells or anything, never acts like a dick, but Bucky can see it on his face when he’s talking to Nat, when they’re huddled over storyboards late into the night. Steve wants the movie to work, wants the movie to fly, and sometimes it seems like he’d carry it up into the sky under his own power if he could.

Bucky likes that about him, how tough he is. How driven he is to succeed. Now the awards make sense, all the accolades; the celebration of him inside the industry and out: Steve knows what he wants and he makes it happen. It’s not a bad way to be.

That he likes Steve doesn’t surprise him because hell, everybody does. But that he finds the guy interesting as well as talented as shit and bone-crushingly beautiful--that’s come as a surprise.

Oh hell, he thinks.

There’s something different about standing here in costume, about the cameras being in place, about the knowledge that they’ll both go for it this time--no marking, no sketching, no testing of beats. Bucky knows what’s going to happen: how hard Steve will kiss him, where Steve’s hands will be, where he’ll put his own. It’s all scripted and under control and he’ll find a way to ignore the fact that Steve is ridiculously attractive, that he’s a fucking great kisser, and the inconvenient truth that the last time they’d run this scene, Bucky humiliated himself through and fucking through.

They’d been rehearsing at night, just the two of them and Natasha, the director. The house they were using was a lot cooler like that, with the sun down and the stars in abundance, and Nat had been insistent that they get in one more run before she loaded the cameras in and started futzing with sound.

“This room and you two,” Nat had said, waving them inside after dinner. “That’s all we need to make this scene work. So let’s go find it.”

She’d positioned Bucky by the settee and ordered Steve to exit stage left, ready to storm in when he called _action_. Then she took Bucky by the shoulders and grinned at him, his smile made easy by wine.

“He surprises you,” Nat said, quiet so only Bucky could hear. “You’re angry at him at this point. You have every goddamn right to be. But you’re also so in love with him that you can’t see straight and the moment he touches you, the moment he lets you touch him, your anger gets subsumed and the only thing you can think of is to ask for more.” She’d tipped back a little, her expression softening. “Your character, Benjamin, he’s afraid of what he feels, what he’s willing to do in this moment. I need you as an actor not to be. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Bucky had said, and he’d meant it, too, up and until Nat called a soft _action_ and Steve blew into the room, his face already desperate.

“Benjamin,” he said, “please, you have to believe me. What you saw, what you thought you saw, it wasn’t--”

Bucky turned away, his mouth working around Benjamin’s anger. “Really? What was it then?”

“She asked me for help. She hasn’t heard from her father since the war ended and she thought I could tell her what to do, where she should start looking. And then she--she was overwhelmed by her grief.”

“So you were comforting her.”

“Yes.”

“Which required that you hold her.”

“She threw herself into my arms, Ben! What would you have me do?”

Bucky turned, his mouth curled into a sneer. “Have you do? Why, nothing at all, Captain. Your choices are your own.”

“Then why are you so angry with me?” Rogers’s voice was that of his character, Matthew; rougher than his normal tone and always a half-step from wounded. “Please, tell me. I don’t understand.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

Matthew’s hand on his elbow, Rogers’ eyes locked onto his own. “No, you don’t. But I hate the idea that I’ve hurt you.”

The touch had unbalanced Benjamin; Bucky let that uncertainty show. “It’s of no matter.”

“It _is_.” Suddenly Rogers was in his space, his fingers sliding up to grab at Bucky’s bicep, bare beneath his thin t-shirt sleeve. “It means more than you can know.”

His Benjamin made no move to pull away; he stood as if turn to stone by Matthew’s grip, the bright, unsteady sheen of his eyes. “Then tell me,” Bucky said, reaching back towards haughty. “If it’s so vital that I understand your inexplicable behavior, Captain Arnold, then pray tell: enlighten me.”

“Oh, god,” Rogers breathed, Matthew did, and then Rogers’ mouth had been on his, trembling and yet all at once fierce. Bucky reeled, let his body tell of Benjamin’s wavering, the battle between anger and unspoken desire. His hands scattered, birds frightened by thunder, and they drifted around Steve’s shoulders, his face.

“Good,” Nat said from the sidelines. “Put them wherever you want, Bucky, but when they settled, you have to hang on.”

He settled for the back of Steve’s neck, for a knot of his fingers that left Steve nowhere to go and Steve--Matthew--moaned, a low little thing that Bucky was sure only he could here.

Steve’s tongue was in his mouth and his nails caught Bucky’s spine, raked down and dug in at the base of his back and for a long, lovely second, Benjamin couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only let his head fall back and whine.

“Oh, my beautiful boy,” Rogers murmured, rubbing his lips at the curve of Bucky’s neck. “I never imagined that you wanted me.”

“Wanted you? Wanted?” Benjamin sounded drunk, his words a hot slurry. “I’ve ached for you, my captain.”

Matthew let out a growl, more helpless than fierce, and then they were kissing again loose and wet and needy, Steve’s hand curled now around Bucky’s ass, and--

Nat clapped her hands together, a sharp, sudden staccato. “Nice work, fellas. But hang on. Run that bit for me again.”

Rogers let Bucky go and Bucky’d stepped back and found his heart pounding, his knees maybe shaking. “Which bit? Rogers asked.

Nat tapped her fingers on her chin. “From your line right before the kiss, Bucky, through to where we just stopped, please.”

They moved back into position. Bucky took a deep breath and reached back for the right moment, the right flutter inside of Benjamin’s chest. “Then tell me,” he said with an edge. “If it’s so vital that I understand your inexplicable behavior, Captain Arnold, then pray tell: enlighten me.”

“Oh, god.”

Then they were kissing again, as ardent as before. The same moan when Bucky’s arms caught around Steve’s neck, the same shudder when Steve’s nails turned down Bucky’s spine and dug in at the base.

Rogers’ mouth slid to Bucky’s throat, bit gently this time at the turn of its curve. “Oh, my beautiful boy,” he whispered, “I never imagined that you wanted me.”

“Wanted you? Wanted? I’ve ached for you, my captain.”

Rogers growled again, let both hands fall this time to the swell of Bucky’s ass, and Bucky couldn’t help but shove his hips forward, to rock against the stonework that was Steve Rogers’ thigh.

“Ah,” Nat said, her voice slicing the moment in two. “Ok, I actually like that, Steve. A little more forward than we’d talked about--”

“Yeah,” Steve said. Bucky could feel his face flush. “Sorry about that.”

“No, no, it’s good. It works. It just needs an equal and opposite reaction, that’s all.” She slid into Bucky’s field of vision and that’s when Bucky realized that Steve was still holding him. Neither of them had moved a centimeter. “Buck, don’t forget that Matthew is seriously out of his depth here. He plays at Mr. I Know Everything, but he’d never had anybody touch him like this and that he’s overwhelmed by what he’s feeling.”

“Right,” Bucky said. “Uh huh.”

“So when Steve grabs your ass, we need to see how that affects you.” She raised her eyebrows. “How do you think it affects you?”

“I think--I think Benjamin wouldn’t be able to control himself. He’d, ah, it’d be hard for him to deal with how good it feels.”

Steve rumbled in his chest, a sound that felt good in Bucky’s own. “I agree with you. Yes.”

Nat poked him in the shoulder. “Which means what to Matthew, then?”

“Whatever restraint he had left--and that isn’t much, believe me--is gonna get even thinner.”

Nat made a satisfied sound. “Yep. Good. So show me that this time. Start again from the same place.”

“If it’s so vital that I understand your inexplicable behavior, Captain Arnold, then pray tell: enlighten me.”

“Oh, god.”

This kiss was a collision, two bodies crashing together in space, and this time Bucky couldn’t ignore how good Steve smelled; how sweet his mouth was, how eager; how big his hands were and how fiercely they clutched at him. He wondered if he’d have bruises in the morning, if he’d wake up and feel deliciously sore, if he’d look in the mirror and see suck marks on his throat, soft marks from Steve’s teeth and get hard all over again, hard like he was now, hard against Steve’s thigh, Matthew’s, and thrusting his hips like a kid unable to do anything with desire like this, thick and overwhelming, except express it right there and then.

“Oh, my beautiful boy.” The words were rough in his ear. “I never imagined that you wanted me.”

A moan first and then the lines, reedy, half-breathless. “Wanted you? Wanted? I’ve ached for you, my captain.”

Steve squeezed his ass and Bucky cried out and shoved his hips up again and oh god, he was hard and oh god, there was no way that Steve didn’t know it, and oh god, his first movie with Steve goddamn Rogers and his dick was acting like it was still in drama school, unclear on what was make believe, and they had to stop this, he had to, why hadn’t Nat told them to--!

He yanked himself from Steve’s arms and staggered back, panting.

Nat’s voice rang out of the shadows. “Barnes? What’s wrong?”

“Um,” Steve had said, startled. “Bucky? You ok?”

“No,” Bucky had said then, whispers to himself now, waiting for the cameras to roll. “No.”

Nat holds up a hand from behind the monitor. “Ten more minutes, Buck. We’re having trouble with the boom.”

Bucky steps away from his mark and takes a breath. Another. Again.

I can do this, he tells himself. I can. It’s not just the two of us and the room. Look at all these fucking people. There’s no way that I’ll get lost in it in time. There’s zero. None.

He’s so wrapped up in his own stave off the panic bullshit that the hand on his shoulder makes him jump.

“Hey,” Steve says. He’s in full costume and makeup, Matthew’s scars from Ardenne cut on his cheek and under his eye.

“Hi.”

“You ok?”

Oh shit, Bucky thinks. Is it showing? “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

Steve looks into his eyes, keeps looking, the grip on his shoulder going tight. “I’m glad we’re starting with this scene,” he says.

“Why?”

“Because I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

Bucky swallows. Great. He’d made Steve worry about a scene, about whether his co-star could get through it without something middle school happening. Fuck. “I’m sorry what happened the other day," he says in a rush. "When I, you know, overreacted.”

“Bucky--”

“That wasn’t cool, and I won’t--I mean, it won’t happen again.”

“Which part?” Steve says softly. “You getting off on kissing me or you running away?”

Bucky feels like is a yoyo. “Um, what?”

“Because I can handle the first one. It happens, you know?” Steve’s hand slides up to his jaw. “But the second one? Not so much.” He smiles, a glimmer that makes Bucky’s heart do a flip. “Maybe it’s a good thing you did leave, though.”

“Why?”

“I like you,” Steve says, Steve freaking Rogers, Mr. Oscar, Mr. American Icon, Mr. A+ Freaking Human. “I like you a lot, Buck. And not just because you’re a fucking great kisser. I’ve wanted to work with you for ages.”

Bucky’s stuck in a Stoppard play. Jesus. “You have?”

Steve looks surprised. “Well, yeah. Since you did _The Unfinished Bombing._ ”

His second movie. A low-budget thriller with aspirations of arty. It hadn’t exactly worked. “What?” Bucky says. “Nobody’s seen that. That’s like--it played for like five minutes.”

“A friend of mine worked on it. She wouldn’t shut up about how awful it was but how great you were. She sent me a copy.”

“Wow.”

“And ever since then, I’ve made a point of seeing your stuff.” Steve laughs a little. “I mean, honestly, I’ve been jealous more than a few times. The parts you get to play are always _fascinating_ , you know? Complex. And you communicate that so beautifully through your movements and your voice and your eyes. God, Buck, you have such expressive eyes. They’re amazing.”

Bucky wants to sit down. He needs to sit down. Except Steve is still touching him. And saying nice shit about his acting. Is he dreaming? Did he fall out of bed and hit his head?

But Steve is still talking. “I mean, didn’t your agent tell you? I’m the one who asked Nat to send you this script. I knew you were perfect for it.”

“I--you...you what?”

“The second I read it, I thought, Bucky Barnes as Benjamin. No question, no doubt.”

There’s a smile on his face, he can feel it, a big, dumb smile that he cannot fucking fight back. “Christ. I had no idea.”

“So,” Steve says, “ if you hadn’t left the other night, I might have given you the wrong impression: that all I appreciated about you was how gorgeous you are. You might’ve thought I wanted you onboard just to get paid for making out with you.” He blushes, a warm rush of rose that peaks in his ears. “Oh god. This sounds awful now that I’m saying it out loud. Fuck. I didn’t--I promise you, Buck, that’s not why--”

“Shut up, Rogers,” Bucky says. “Shut the hell up.”

This time, he’s kissing Steve Rogers, full stop. This time, it’s Steve who’s pulling him close and Steve who’s stroking his back and nipping his lip and groaning softly when Bucky sucks on his tongue. There’s a room full of people behind them, around them, but all that matters in this room is the way they fit together, the idol and the character champ.

“What would you have done if I’d stayed the other night?” Bucky whispers under the hoots and catcalls from the crew.

“Easier for me to show than tell.”

“Yeah?”

Steve makes a soft, aching sound. “Mmm, definitely.”

“So,” Bucky says with a grin that’s divine, “your room later, or mine?”

**Author's Note:**

> ...this one got away from me good.


End file.
